All men and women, who resist living in accordance with obsolete and stereotype gender patterns, are felt as a threat by reactionaries. Bigots and a generally condemning attitude in society are forcing many young homosexual men and women to appear heterosexual. In practice this means that many homosexual men and women are living with heterosexual partners without ever mentioning their real sexual orientation. Naturally sooner or later such relationships will collapse. However, when that happens there might already be several common children. Needless to say, it can be a very painful experience to discover that one’s long-term partner is no longer able to continue the relationship; and the reason is that the partner was forced into the relationship in the first place as a defence mechanism in a reactionary society. (Please click here to read Part 1 with Lithuania Tribune’s Introduction and here to read Part II)

Therefore, narrow-minded condemnations against homosexuals are a real threat against stable family happiness. Why not simply allow homosexuals to get married and adopt children? It would lead to less unhappy heterosexual, and the creation of happy homosexual, families. Scientific studies have shown that children, who have grown up in homosexual families as adolescents and adults are as healthy as children, who have been raised in heterosexual families. These studies have also shown that children’s future sexual orientation isn’t influenced by the sexual orientation of the adults, who have raised them.

A recently published scientific study by Dr. Nanette Gartell in the journal Pediatrics even indicated that children of lesbian couples were healthier than children in heterosexual families. Dr. Gartell had during almost 25 years followed 78 lesbian couples. The scientist first interviewed the women during insemination process or during pregnancy. Follow-up research was conducted when the children were 2, 5, 10 and 17 years old.

In short, homosexuality isn’t a threat to family values, while homophobia certainly is.

To force adults to suppress their sexual desires can have devastating consequences. The most obvious example of this is the effects the celibacy among Catholic priests has had. Instead of allowing sexual relationships between priests and consenting adults the Catholic Church still hasn’t abolished celibacy. As have been seen in numerous countries (notably in the USA and in Ireland) Catholic priests have been molesting children. When natural healthy sexual desires, heterosexual or homosexual, directed towards consenting adults are suppressed, the sexual desire can be morbidly transformed towards children. Is this really a price worth paying for not allowing all sexual orientations towards consenting adults?

By comparison, the Church of Sweden, where some 70% of the Swedish population are members, has a much more understanding attitude towards sexual relationships, both hetero- and homosexual. For example the Bishop of Stockholm, Ms. Eva Brunne, is living in a registered partnership with another woman. Thus, many Catholic bishops and the Bishop of Stockholm have their sexual preferences directed towards women, but contrary to the Catholic Church the Church of Sweden isn’t forcing its representatives to either hide or suppress their sexual identity. Generally I think suppressing and hiding are inferior to openness and honesty in general and in particular in connection with one’s sexual desires. Without getting too deep into theological details it can be argued that in Christianity there is shallow justification for condemning homosexuality. For example Ms. Brunne’s predecessor as Bishop of Stockholm, Ms. Caroline Krook, has argued that the authors of the Bible, and in particular Paulus, didn’t have our modern knowledge of the existence of “genuine homosexuality”.

In encyclopaedias every organism, regardless how insignificant, is always listed with a detailed description of how it behaves in order to multiply and pass life from generation to generation. In biology this is the most important information to understand the life of the organism; historically in evolution and today. Without comparison it’s much more important to understand humans’ behaviour and life than to understand any other organism. If a person doesn’t understand how one’s own body and mind, and those of our fellow human beings, are functioning, how will he or she even start understanding our complex world?

Why then sexual enlightenment isn’t seen as a core of children’s education and upbringing? I believe that for children from 13 to 17 years of age sexual education should be one of the main subjects in school. Such education should start with some basic information of the male and female bodies’ anatomy and functioning. Other basic information such as pros and cons with different contraceptives, description of sexually transmittable diseases and objective information on different sexual orientations most be compulsive for everyone. All useful data such as statistics on how often people are having sex in different age groups, at what age statistically women are getting their first child must also be taught.

From this knowledge base other school subjects can be attached: family law, criminology (sexual violence, domestic violence, incest, sexual exploitation such as prostitution), sociology (gender equality, income distribution between sexes), literature (how love and feelings have been expressed in history), religion (how different religions in history have handled sex and personal relations), political science (political parties’ attitude towards abortion, toward publically funded day-care, etc), etc. Mathematics and statistics can easily be taught as tools for understanding and quantifying all aspects of sexual education. The subject native language, for example Lithuanian, can be taught in a way that pupils are instructed to write poems about love or essays in some of the above-mentioned aspects of sex.

At times it can be very difficult to motivate children to study, but teenagers are very interested in learning more about how adult relationships are initiated, maintained and ended. This curiosity is natural and positive. Children simply want to prepare themselves for adult life. Why not use this natural curiosity as a starting point to almost all subjects? Any pedagogue would tell you that motivation among pupils is the single most important factor to determine the result of education.

Society as a whole can be seen as a fishing net with a huge number of quadratic holes. If someone even slightly pulls one of the corners of the net, all holes in the net will change their form. By the same token, if the average relationship between men and women, or the attitude towards homosexuality, is changed, society as a whole will slightly change everywhere. The reason is simple. Both men and women are everywhere in society. And people with all kinds of sexual orientation are everywhere. But for people to understand how and why society is changing knowledge is necessary. Therefore, pupils must be educated in all aspects of sex in school.

It should be clear to everyone that sexual education is much more relevant and necessary to the average pupil than the periodic table or some religious dogmas. It seems that in Lithuania there is even a draconic middle age law forbidding objective information about homosexuality to teenagers and children. It’s absurd! Instead it’s the duty of the state itself to fund and make such objective education mandatory to all pupils.

It’s a well-known fact that parents often fail to realize that their children are entering the adult world. However, to hinder children to grow up is a mission destined to fail. In my mind, sex is like swimming. At first it must be taught on land without any risk of drowning. Then gradually the person learning to swim or learning how to interact with other people can be given more freedom under less supervision. Naturally no one still struggling to keep afloat would be allowed to swim unattended in deep water, but a good sober swimmer can take his, or her, own decisions.

By the same token, young people with the theoretical above-mentioned knowledge of sex might still not be physically and mentally ready for sexual relationships. However, sex is a natural continuation of a deepening personal relationship between adults. Parents who have witnessed their child’s development from birth, through the first tottering steps and first day at school, can be truly proud when the child has succeeded in finally mastering the last piece of adult skills; how to independently initiate, maintain and end personal relationships with a sexual element.

Young people, who are wisely and systematically guided into responsible sexual behaviour, are less likely to become parents in an unplanned way, less likely to be infected with sexually transmittable diseases and less likely to be victims, or perpetrators, of sexual crimes. People, who have knowledge of sex, don’t have to try drugs or get severely drunk to hide their lack of sexual experience. Also, pupils, who have received objective education in sex, are much better equipped in withstanding the distorted image of sex in pornography. In Western Europe, e.g. in Sweden, sexual education has been an important part of mandatory education for decades.

In addition, people with knowledge of sex have more fun!

In Lithuania there seems to be a widespread fear that improved education in sex would lead to irresponsible behaviours among young people. In fact, the opposite is true. Give people knowledge and they are usually responsible. Girls, who are too young, don’t want to become pregnant. No one wants to infected by diseases or be a victim of crimes. A small minority will always misuse knowledge, but this is no reason to decline the majority the right to education. It’s not by keeping people illiterate we should fight illegal graffiti. It’s by making the population more literate so that they can appreciate good literature and improve their own taste.

A parent to a child, who is true to itself in choosing his or her own path in life, can be genuinely proud. A person in Lithuania today who has chosen to defy all prejudices and come out as homosexual, bisexual or transsexual for sure has been true to himself or herself. I would congratulate any mother or father of such child, because there is no greater achievement as a parent than to succeed in raising a strong and independent child into a proud and emancipated adult.

By the way, many psychologists believe that it’s good for children to witness, when parents are physically showing their love by lightly touching and kissing each other. Then as an adult, it will be easier, for the child to smoothly and naturally handle the changeover from a deepening platonic relationship to a sexual one. However, and let me forcefully stress this, to violate a child’s integrity by forcing him or her to view or, god forbid, participate in more advanced sexual activities is a very serious crime indeed.

The discussion on sexual education could be broadened. In general, good modern education should not force children to turn into someone or something. Instead, modern education should merely help the pupil or student in answering the following three questions: Who am I? How does the world look like? What skills do I need for this world? These are the same three questions for a seven-year-old child as for a sixty-seven-old retired professor. For all people in searching the answer on these three questions, regardless of age, an understanding of sex is important, but it’s particularly important that the schooling system is ready to meet the demand of sexual information from teenagers.

Part 4 will be posted on Lithuanian Tribune’s site during June 2010.

A foreigner’s thoughts on Lithuania after the Baltic Pride – Part 1 (Introduction, Homosexuality)

A foreigner’s thoughts on Lithuania after Baltic Pride Parade – Part 2 (Gender Roles)

Disclaimer

All views and opinions expressed are those of the author, Mr. Erik Edlund, and may not completely coincide with those of the Lithuania Tribune
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© Copyright 2010, Erik Edlund and the Lithuania Tribune, All Rights Reserved